That moment you realize the House of Hades comes out in a week.

*fangirl screaming*

(I love this chapter. I don't know why. In this story, I either love the chapter or had horrible writer's block with it.)

Starring Hazel Levesque
Guest Star of Queen Marie

Hazel loved art. That wasn't much of a new thing to learn. Whenever she got home from school she'd start playing around with pencils and scrap pieces of paper and create all sorts of weird kiddie stuff. It was a good way to get her off of Queen Marie's hands.

But then she learned about glue.

Hazel was obsessed with it. She begged her mother day and night to let her buy just one bottle from the shops. But she always replied that they didn't have enough money.

Well, fine, then. She'd just have to get it by her own means.

Hazel placed a ruby on the counter. "I'd like to buy these bottles of glue," she announced, holding up ten of them. The man took the ruby cautiously, and inspected it closely.

"My word," he murmured after a moment. "This is the real deal, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir," replied Hazel. "I will be taking what is mine now." And in arm with ten bottles of glue, she set off for home.

One of the bottles was used right away to create a mess. Hazel quickly learned afterwards that you didn't need to use a lot for it to work, and it actually did its job better when you didn't. She created mini-paper sculptures and collages and other artistic things to give out as presents for her mother.

A few weeks later Hazel was working on the kitchen table with her fancy little bottle of glue while Queen Marie hustled around trying to make dinner at the same time as speaking to an angry customer.

"I'm sorry if your husband tripped and fell down the staircase and broke his arm, but why is this my fault?" she was saying.

"Because you sold him a jewel," the angry wife said. "A cursed jewel!"

"That is crazy," Marie said, reaching out for some spices to sprinkle onto Hazel's meal. She didn't realize she had grabbed the wrong bottle and squirted a clear transparent glue onto the rice. "You people always invent a crazy way to blame me."

"But we're not the first, right?" the wife continued. "You sold plenty of other jewels to plenty of other people, and where are they right now? Either dead or in the hospital."

"You know what?" said Marie, slamming down Hazel's meal in front of her daughter angrily. "You can leave me and my daughter alone. If you have a problem with my merchandise, just don't go out and buy it."

The lady glared at her coldly for a moment. "Crazy black people," she muttered before turning and heading for the door.

Queen Marie sighed and turned to Hazel. "What am I going to do?" she asked, rubbing her forehead with the heel of her hand.

Hazel didn't reply. Or couldn't, actually. She began to cough, then cough even harder. "Hazel, what is it?" Marie asked, patting her daughter cautiously on the back. "Are you alright?"

The wife turned and saw what was happening. She sighed and headed back toward them. "She's chocking, you idiot," she muttered, crouching down to Hazel's height. "Sweetie, just keep coughing. And stop pounding her back, Marie, that does absolutely nothing to help."

Hazel gripped the edge of the table hard, her knuckles turning white. The lady handed her a glass of water to drink and to wash away whatever was in her throat. For two seconds this did nothing and in fact only made it worse, but soon the water loosened the glue and it slipped away.

"You okay?" she asked Hazel, and the little girl nodded, rubbing her throat.

"Thank goodness," said Queen Mary, and the other shot her a withering gaze.

Then the wife spotted the open glue lying on the kitchen counter and put two and two together. "You horrible person," she said to Marie, standing and shaking her head in disgust. "You have no idea how to take care of your own daughter. Poisoning her." She turned back to Hazel, who was beginning to regain control of her natural facial colours. "I'm so sorry, sweetie," she said kindly. "You ever need help with something, just come and find me."

She stood, rolled her eyes at Marie, and walked away.

-o-O-o-

"That horrible mother," the wife finished as she completed her story around her own family kitchen table.

Her eldest daughter frowned.

"So that nasty woman poisoned her own daughter with glue?" she asked. "Why would she do something as horrible as that?"

"I don't know," replied her mother. "Negroes—I mean… blacks have always been a mystery to me."

"Eat a tube of glue!" chanted her two-year-old son. "Eat a tube of super glue!"

"Yes," she replied, staring longingly out the window, wondering how her husband was doing at that very moment in the hospital. "Eat a tube of super glue."

Disclaimer: I don't own.

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